Considering Newt, Monday Edition

Adam Smith in the St. Petersburg Times: “If it seems incongruous for anti-establishment tea party Republicans to embrace such a creature of Washington and K Street as Gingrich, it’s misreading the tea party…Gingrich was known for upending Washington fiefdoms and conventional thinking, not protecting them.”

Bill Keller in the New York Times on immigration: “There are plenty of reasons the thought of President Newt Gingrich makes me shudder. But on this hard, defining American issue, he’s shown a combination of brains, heart and guts that puts the rest of his party to shame.”

Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post: “The challenge for Gingrich in the final three weeks of the Iowa campaign is to try to marry the energy and momentum he has with some semblance of the organization that Huckabee built (or, more accurately, had built for him) in 2008.”

Brody Mullins and Patrick O’Connor in the WSJ: “Gingrich will need the activists’ support to upend Mr. Romney in what could prove to be a protracted primary fight, because the former governor has far more money and a more sophisticated campaign infrastructure.”